A meeting of environmental architects and engineers from as far away as New Orleans and the Netherlands to come up with ideas to prevent flooding along the New Market Creek corridor of Hampton Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park. Many of they ideas involve more green-space around the creek to help absorb excess water.

A meeting of environmental architects and engineers from as far away as New Orleans and the Netherlands to come up with ideas to prevent flooding along the New Market Creek corridor of Hampton Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park. Many of they ideas involve more green-space around the creek to help absorb excess water.

As a coastal community, Hampton is aligned with the Chesapeake Bay. But it’s also a city with tributaries and creeks, landscapes that should be embraced more as an amenity and less as a threat, according to the experts.

“Here in Hampton, there is water everywhere. Hampton is the city of creeks and we want to strengthen that,” said Steven Slabbers, a partner with Bosch Slabbers, a Netherlands-based landscape architect firm.

His co-partner Paul Van Dijk added, “there is much more than the bay. There is a lot of water in Hampton, but a lot of it is not visible.”

Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press

Paul van Dijk from the Netherlands sketches out ideas to mitigate the constant flooding along the New Market Creek corridor in Hampton during a work session at Sandy Bottom Nature Park Wednesday January 30, 2019.

Paul van Dijk from the Netherlands sketches out ideas to mitigate the constant flooding along the New Market Creek corridor in Hampton during a work session at Sandy Bottom Nature Park Wednesday January 30, 2019. (Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press)

Finding solutions to help Hampton embrace its surroundings and mitigate flooding were the focus Wednesday for about two dozen city planners, landscape architects and other regional water resource experts, including Slabbers and Dijk, during an all-hands-on-deck brainstorming session.

“We are searching for a solution that not only works but also ... adds value, and solutions that guarantee that water safety, but at the same time, turn Hampton into a more interesting place,” Slabbers said.

Students from Hampton University and Old Dominion University teamed up for the midday charrette held at the Sandy Bottom Nature Park. The sessions, among several this week, are prep work for Hampton planners who are set to gather input from residents during a community meeting 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Hampton Roads Convention Center.

Once city planners have gathered enough input, identified projects will be presented to Hampton City Council for review.

Hampton sought help from Bosch Slabbers and architect consultants Waggonner & Ball from New Orleans to help develop projects within the Newmarket Creek Watershed before tackling other areas.

The same group previously came in 2015 under an effort called the “Dutch Dialogues.” The group, along with Hampton and Norfolk officials, works to find long-term solutions against sea level rise.

“The Netherlands have been dealing with water management issues for centuries,” said Terry O’Neill, Hampton’s director of community planning. “It makes sense to learn how they have created management practices while still maintaining a vibrant high standard.”

Taking a micro-view of the watershed area, which spans from the Back River by Langley Air Force Base to Newport News, the experts pored over maps and sketched designs on tracing paper during Wednesday’s session.

Whether sketching called for adding more vegetation or creating recreational water spaces, the goal was to find ways to retain, store and drain water.

“We are literally coloring areas of opportunities and developing ideas, through drawing,” said Christy Everett, Hampton Roads director with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “For example, along Mercury Boulevard, could you put some more trees, or more wetland plants, to hold the water? Could you work with individual homeowners? … Can you use rain barrels? It might be a connection to a river that has a walking trail or constructed wetlands.”

Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press

A meeting of environmental architects and engineers from as far away as New Orleans and the Netherlands to come up with ideas to prevent flooding along the New Market Creek corridor of Hampton Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park.

A meeting of environmental architects and engineers from as far away as New Orleans and the Netherlands to come up with ideas to prevent flooding along the New Market Creek corridor of Hampton Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park. (Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press)

She added the group is looking for those opportunities and specific sites that will help reduce the impact of flooding, but also have multiple benefits.

In December, Hampton announced a partnership with the foundation and is eligible for a new kind of environmental impact bond that will help fund these projects. The bonds, drawn from private investors, are specialized financing tools aimed at helping communities shoulder the cost of large-scale or bundled projects.

Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press

A meeting of environmental architects and engineers from as far away as New Orleans and the Netherlands to come up with ideas to prevent flooding along the New Market Creek corridor of Hampton Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park.

A meeting of environmental architects and engineers from as far away as New Orleans and the Netherlands to come up with ideas to prevent flooding along the New Market Creek corridor of Hampton Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park. (Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press)

The Newmarket Creek Watershed is an area prone to flooding from rainfall and tidal events, and has a history of flood damage within the watershed.

“We are at risk. We are going (to) have to figure out how to adapt,” O’Neill said.

Anisa Khalili-Sangsari, a Hampton University architect student who joined the project Tuesday, said the greatest challenge may be getting everyone to agree when it comes to execution.

“We don’t want to design something that the community is against,” Khalili-Sangsari said. “There is no community without unity.”

Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press

Architect David Waggonner from New Orleans and colleague Lex Agnew pour over maps of the New Market Creek area of Hampton as they formulate ideas to deal with the flooding issues that plague the water way Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park.

Architect David Waggonner from New Orleans and colleague Lex Agnew pour over maps of the New Market Creek area of Hampton as they formulate ideas to deal with the flooding issues that plague the water way Wednesday January 30, 2019 at Sandy Bottom Nature Park. (Rob Ostermaier / Daily Press)